The end of Oliver is somewhat bittersweet for me. While it is nice to be free of all the rehearsals(especially the ones that cut into class and my weekends) I really enjoyed the production as a whole. Our months of hard work and efforts culminated in the 3 performances we had on December 6th, 7th, and 8th. After finishing those, it honestly felt like there should be more. Following the conclusion of the final night on the 8th, I didn’t really feel like I was done performing all of this pretty difficult music that I had learned over a long period. I was in denial, I felt like I should perform it more. Some of the other members of the band echoed this sentiment.
The performances themselves went really well, which is good because they were our only shots to get the music right. The first night was the hardest at first, mainly because I had serious nervousness to overcome. The saying goes “The audience doesn’t have the music” meaning that the audience won’t know if you make a mistake while playing. Though this is true, a wrong note in an exposed place is very obvious and is pretty embarrassing, especially on the opening song of the entire musical. In most of the practices, I had always been unable to hit the correct opening note at the start of the first song, but I managed to do it during all 3 nights. Sometimes a little adrenaline and nervousness is a good thing while playing. Once everyone got into their grooves